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Notes from the Home - July 15, 2014

Tuesday, I took the Covenant
Woods’ bus to the Columbus Clinic to see Dr. Miller, my primary care guy. That’s
what they call general practitioners these days, isn’t it? I thought he would
discover that I was running a temperature. Before the good doctor made his
appearance, however, a nurse took my vital signs. Everything was in order,
including my 97.9 temperature. The discomfort I’ve been feeling must be a
MSer’s sensitivity to heat.

The Internet is brimming with
sites offering advice to those of us with Multiple Sclerosis. An exhortation to
make sure the AC is working can be found in every one of them. The air
conditioning in my apartment is working well, albeit a little harder than the
last two summers, when 75 seemed to be the ideal temperature. This year I’ve
been dropping the thermostat to 73 during the afternoons, and keeping it at 74
the rest of the day. Nonetheless, any exertion, no matter how small, seems to
get me sweating.

Anyway, when the nurse left,
Dr. Miller came in. He asked how things were going. I told him I thought I had
a bladder infection. He asked why. “Because it hurts when I go.” He told me to
go pee in a cup. I told him I’d need a catheter; I can’t pee on demand. The
truth is the old bladder has performance anxiety. If I’m in the apartment
reading or watching the TV and the urge comes over me, I head to the head and
everything works fine. Well, not always. There are times when I suddenly
realize I’m going to be late for this or that if I don’t hurry. My bladder
doesn’t hurry; in fact it hardly works at all when I need it to get it done
now.

Rather than trust me with one
of the clinic’s catheters or give me a cup to fill at my leisure at home, the
doctor opted to tap my bladder himself. He hoisted me on to the examination
table, did the usual examining things and called for a nurse. When she arrived,
Dr. Miller told her to get him a pediatric catheter. Pediatric catheter? I am,
admittedly, modestly endowed. But a pediatric catheter? Pul-leeeze.

My pride was salvaged when
the kiddie catheter failed to produce a single drop of urine. “Your well must
be dry, but maybe we should try a regular catheter – just in case,” the doc
said. The big-boy catheter reached all the way to my bladder. The doc took a
look at what the tube had yielded and cast doubt on my diagnoses. “This urine
looks pretty clear,” he said before sending it to the lab and me to the waiting
room.

Twenty minutes later, he
called me back to the examining room. “I guess you know your body,” he said.
“You do have a bladder infection.” He said he would send a prescription to the
Clinic pharmacy. At the pharmacy, I told the cashier I was there to pick a
prescription Dr. Miller sent down for me. She went to see if it had been
received, and when she got back she told me, “They’re still counting it.” So I
waited. I’m not sure for how long, but grandson Hayden, not yet four, could
have counted to fourteen faster than that pharmacist did.

With meds in hand, I headed toward the closest
exit, fumbling all the way as I tried to get the phone out of my pants pocket
in order to call Wes and tell him I was ready to go. Before I retrieved the
phone, however, I spotted the Covenant Woods’ bus heading my way. Wow, Wes is
clairvoyant, I thought. Alas, it was just a coincidence. The bus pulled up, and
Mary got off and headed to her appointment. I got on and was on my way back to
Covenant Woods.

Thursday afternoon, I hopped
in the shower. OK, I didn’t hop in, but I managed to get in without much
difficulty, showered without difficulty and got out of the shower without difficulty.
Towel in hand, I stood with the commode in front of me and the wheelchair
behind me, drying the places I couldn’t dry while sitting on the shower chair.
When I was sort of dry enough and ready to get back in the wheelchair, my feet
wouldn’t move.

It was as if someone had sneaked in and covered the bathroom
floor with glue, probably because my singing in the shower disturbed them. My
singing has disturbed people for years. I was once a member of the Ruthfred
Lutheran Church children’s choir and vaguely recall a time or two when Pastor
Dennis asked me to just move my lips.

So there I was in the
bathroom, naked and my feet stuck to the floor. To get to the wheelchair I had
to take a step or two backwards. Try as I might, I couldn’t make my feet take
that step. Plan B was to pivot as best I could, sit on the toilet seat, curse
lustily and hope I could lean forward enough grab on to the wheelchair to brace
myself when I was ready to get back up. But I couldn’t manage to get on the
toilet seat. The right foot finally moved just enough to get me twisted into a
position I would have had difficulty getting out of if I had had all my
faculties.

My legs were weakening, and
they’re not all that strong to begin with, and my arms had had just about
enough of trying to hold the rest of me up. Rather than wait for my limbs to
give out, I lowered myself onto the floor as gently as I could. My phone was
within easy reach; it always goes to the bathroom with me. “At least put on
your underpants,” the angel at one ear said. “Hell, no one will notice.
Remember the pediatric catheter?” the devil at the other ear said.

Heeding the words of the
angel, I opted for modesty and quickly realized it was going to require some
hard work. I grabbed my underwear, which was on the hamper. Like my bladder, my
legs are at their worst when I need them most. My left leg was stiff as a
board, and the right leg was nearly as bad. I couldn’t lean forward far enough
to get my foot in a leg hole, and the neither leg would let me bend it enough
to bring it closer. Finally, the right leg relented enough to make it possible
get the underwear started. Fortunately, the walking cane I now use to pull
things to me was in the bathroom, not by the kitchen sink where it usually is.
With it I was able to get the appropriate leg hole to open up over my left foot
and fall into place. Then I used the cane to pull the underpants up to my
thighs. By lifting one buttock and pulling, then lifting the other buttock and
pulling, and repeating the process five or six times, I got the underwear up to
where it is supposed to be worn.

I made the call to the front
desk, and moments later, Steve, one of the maintenance men, was at my door. He
came in, slithered around the wheelchair to get into the bathroom and hoisted
me back on to the chair. Pat, one of the aide’s, came in to make sure I all
right. Then James, another of the maintenance men, appeared. With his help, I
got my socks, pants and shirt on. James had one of my shoes in hand. But I wanted
to lie down for a while, and he helped me get on the bed.

Al is telling a far more
exciting version of this tale. Yesterday, Stacie, one of the servers, came up
to me and said, “How come you didn’t say anything about falling? Did you hurt
yourself? Are you OK?” I told her about getting into an untenable position and
lowering myself to the floor in order to avoid falling. “But Al said . . .”

One day, a week or so ago, I
was able to pull myself away from all the excitement here at Covenant Woods and
use my time constructively surfing the net. On huffingtonpost.com I found a
quiz: “Can You Catch These Common Grammar Mistakes.” I wasn’t sure I could, but
there wasn’t anyone around to embarrass myself in front of. So, what the heck,
I took the quiz.

The results: “15 out of
18 – This isn't
your first grammar quiz, is it? You're a natural. It's nice to see someone with
a fine appreciation for the English language. Keep on using words correctly.”

The plethora
of pedagogues who struggled without success to teach me the fine points of
English grammar will no doubt blame my high score on declining standards.

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